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The Seamstress
History The Seamstress is called ‘Mary Dove’, she collects costumes and spends time dressing and undressing cast members. She runs a sewing repairs shop. Pinned to the wall are several ‘Thank You’ letters for her work in the wardrobe department. Curiously, they’re addressed to ‘Mary Doyle’. A female working in conjunction with the studio inside the gates, often in the main studio or in her shop next to the cinema. In addition to wardrobe, she also applies makeup to characters in roles. She wears an apron, collects costumes and spends time dressing and undressing cast members. Appearance Wears a skirt and top with her hair pinned back primly and her blouse and cardigan buttoned up often wearing a pinafore over it. Loop - Basic - Helps Frankie get changed (Seamstress Store) - Assists Wendy and Andrea in snow scene (Studio 4 - Snow Room) - Helps Frankie get ready for locker scene (Studio 5) - Asks mask to write a note for Faye and hang dress up (Seamstress Dressing Room) - Visits Mr. Tuttle (Toy Shop) - Helps during infidelity scene. (Studio 5) - Sprays mask with perfume (Studio 5) - Gets Romola's dress from Mr Stanford by Romola shrine (Corridor by Studio 5) - Asks mask to add bruises and nosebleed to picture (Seamstress Dressing Room) - Makeunder with Romola (Seamstress Dressing Room) - takes mask into side room for 1:1 - Finds and cleans up Frankie (Town) Loop - Extended At the start of her loop, The Seamstress is sitting at a sewing machine in her shop. Through the window she sees Frankie in the street outside. He’s on his knees and struggling and she goes out to help him up. She cradles him in her arms and comforts him. They walk back to the shop and she cleans and dresses him. She’s gentle and nurturing and seems to be full of motherly compassion. As she's cleaning him a radio announcement plays saying that ‘Rising movie star Romola Martin has died tragically’. She walks with Frankie through the maze of curtains at the back of her shop. Frankie heads off to Studio 5 and The Seamstress walks downstairs to Studio 4, the ‘Frozen Lake’ set, to help Wendy and Andrea prepare for a shoot. On the way, she asks an audience member to carry Wendy’s cardigan. She leans in and tells him to be wary, ‘She can be difficult.’ She helps the two women into tan trench coats and watches as they dance on the snow before filming starts. Wendy is upset about something and Andrea tries to comfort her. The women put on headscarves and the shoot begins. The Seamstress watches from the sidelines and she put her hands on the shoulders of an audience member. As they watch the performance, she whispers in his ear and explains that Wendy is having a breakdown. Eventually Mr Stanford cries ‘Cut’ and The Seamstress helps the women change back into their own clothes. She puts a necklace around Andrea’s neck. They leave and she tidies up. She moves to the Main Dressing Room next door and sits at a dressing table. She picks up a red lipstick and when no-one is looking she writes ‘THEY ARE EVERYWHERE’ on the mirror. She hands a couple of dresses to an audience member and walks with him upstairs to her workshop. Mr Stanford is there, waiting for her, and they share a brief moment of plotting. (?) She walks out into town and sits on a bench near the fountain. Mr Tuttle creeps out of his shop and sits on the other side of the bench. She gives him a mysterious vial filled with blood and he tips it into his paintbrush water. He’s disappointed that there isn’t more, but she says it’s all she could get. He pours some jelly beans into her hand as payment and carefully picks out the red ones to take back. She goes back to her shop, eating jelly beans along the way. She encourages an audience member to chase her through the maze of curtains. She pins him to the wall and gives him a pendant of an owl, before disappearing into the darkness. When he reaches the workshop she’s waiting for him with a jelly bean. She gives him a pen and paper and asks him to write a note to Faye. She dictates a message, ‘Dear Faye. Your dress is hanging up and your shoes are ready. I’m sorry I missed you. Ms Dove’. She’s happy with his work and smiles sweetly. She takes him by the hand and marches him to a door at the end of the corridor. 1:1 Inside is a small dressing room with herbs hanging from the ceiling in bunches. She locks the door and sits him on a low stool in front of a mirror. She tells him that he needs to get ready for his ‘close-up’. ‘You don’t need much’, she says, ‘Just a little round the eyes and a little something on the lips’. ‘Close your mouth’, she says and she starts to paint him. She applies blusher and black dots next to his eyes, while telling him how beautiful he is. ‘It’s a sin to be as beautiful as you’, she whispers and kisses him on the cheek. She paints something on his lips, possibly containing ‘Szechuan’ pepper. She gives him some heather and whispers a strange story about devilish women and betrayals. She talks about a queen and she identifies herself with the biblical ‘Jezebel’, who was a ‘painted woman’ associated with false prophets and bringing death to the innocent. The man’s lips begin to burn. She clutches his shoulders and drops her head behind him, so that she appears headless in the mirror. A ghostly image of a face slowly appears in the glass. She pushes her head hard into his back and stays still for a long time. When she’s done, she leads him to the door. She takes a pendant from around her neck and hands it to him. The pendant is of two staring eyes. She shoves him into the corridor and goes back into the room She emerges shortly afterwards and waits in the corridor. Faye comes out with a new dress and shoes and they have a brief talk. The Seamstress interacts with The Doctor whose office is across the corridor. They scheme together and she gives him a tiny cloth-wrapped package, marked with an eye and sealed with a pin and a droplet of blood. They talk about Romola and look at her make up chart. They discuss what injuries need to be added to her face. The Seamstress sits at a sewing machine in her shop. She threads a small silver charm on a string, creating a necklace. She walks towards an audience member, takes his arm and pulls him into the maze of curtains. She pins him against a wall and presses a small charm into his hand, whispering ‘Take this, for your protection’. A couple of people have followed them in and are watching in the dark. She lets go and takes off through the maze, back to her workshop. She walks to Studio 5, where she tidies up and waits for Wendy and Andrea. They arrive and prepare for the ‘Infidelity Ballet’. The Seamstress interacts with both of them, asking Andrea how she likes her dress. Wendy looks ill and takes a seat on a footstool. She asks for water and The Seamstress gives her a glass. Wendy looks nervous, shifting her body and staring at an audience member. She asks The Seamstress if she can see the man too. The Seamstress comes over and looks straight at him, but shakes her head, ‘No’. Shooting starts and as the action shifts from one stage to another, The Seamstress goes back and forth between the girls, applying powder, checking their makeup and whispering advice. She watches Wendy with a malevolent gleam in her eye, and sprays an audience member with perfume. Wendy gets more and more agitated and eventually breaks down, causing Mr Stanford to cut the scene. She says that she can see people all around her and she runs off. The Seamstress heads around the back of the set, picks up a pair of scissors and delicately cleans them before placing them on a window sill above the kitchen sink. She meets Mr Stanford in the corridor outside Studio 5. They stand next to a shrine which is adorned with a headshot of Romola. Mr Stanford gives The Seamstress a purple dress. She returns to her workshop and waits for Romola. When she arrives, The Seamstress sits her down and roughly changes her clothes, like she’s trussing up a piece of meat. With casual cruelty she removes Romola’s tattered lace dress and replaces it with a pristine copy. ‘Um, I don’t understand what I’m doing here,’ says Romola, but The Seamstress isn’t listening. She pushes a confused Romola down the corridor to Studio 5, and she emerges on the set, slightly stunned. While Romola acts out a strange scene with Conrad for the film ‘Close The Shutter Tight’, The Seamstress takes her tattered dress into her workshop. She asks an audience member to add bruises and blood to a diagram of a blank face. She checks a make-up chart labelled ‘ROMOLA AFTER THE ACCIDENT’. The ‘Performer Name’ and ‘Character Name’ are both noted as ‘ROMOLA MARTIN’. She adds the word ‘KEYS’ to Romola’s notebook. Romola finishes her scene and is more confused than ever. She returns to The Seamstress who tells her to take off her dress. Romola is hesitant, ‘But, it’s so pretty’. The Seamstress reassures her, ‘Maybe you’ll get to wear it again someday’. She gives Romola the dirty, torn dress and Romola fingers the ripped material. She asks if she could put the new one back on. ‘It’s just for a little while,’ The Seamstress says, tilting a light into her face. She sits Romola down for a makeover. She applies a black eye and a red streak of blood running from her nose. ‘Is this for my scene?’ she asks nervously. ‘Something like that’, The Seamstress replies and she messes up her hair. The Doctor appears briefly and signals to her. She hands Romola a mirror to inspect her reflection. Romola recoils and stares at The Seamstress in horror. She bolts for the door and they struggle briefly against a glass cabinet before Romola escapes. The Seamstress walks to the end of the corridor, where Romola is arguing with The Doctor. He’s telling her that she’s been in an accident. ‘No it’s just make-up’, she protests, pointing at The Seamstress, ‘She put it on me!’ The Seamstress does her best to look conciliatory, but she’s in league with The Doctor. ‘It's okay’ she says and gently holds Romola’s head. The Doctor forces Romola to take a pill, and she staggers off, bewildered. In her third loop, after Romola staggers away from The Doctor, The Seamstress grabs a rose from Romola’s shrine. She takes a member of the audience into a small changing room and locks the door. 1:1 She asks the man ‘You understand why I do it, don't you?’ and he nods. She changes into her dancing shoes and looks down at her apron. ‘What do you think’ she asks, ‘Apron or no apron?’ He shakes his head and she says, ‘You're right. It is a party, after all’. She says that she truly believes in the production and despite her misgivings, she does what she does of her own free will. She chooses to do it, but that doesn’t mean that she enjoys doing it, she says unconvincingly. She takes the man downstairs to watch the finale. As they walk, she chats about the film they’re trying to make and the final scene. She thinks that Wendy could be the one to finally pull it off, ‘after all the others have failed’. She holds onto him as they watch Marshall being slaughtered. When it’s over she seems relieved, ‘She did it! She actually did it!’ The Seamstress walks back to her workshop. She moves with grace and delicacy. On the surface she’s sweet and gentle, but with Romola she’s cruel and aloof. In these moments, she seems to enjoy her part in the studio’s sadistic plan. She does a bit of tidying and sits at her desk. She takes out another charm on a string – a little silver man. She holds it over a small bottle of liquid and swings it back and forth, before dropping it in. She walks over to a rack of clothes and locates a suit jacket. She drops the charm delicately into the breast pocket and conceals the string inside. She takes the jacket through to her store. She sits at her counter and hears on the radio that Frankie has won an award. Shortly afterwards, Frankie stumbles past her window. Final Show Trivia On top of a small desk in her workshop is a letter from her daughter, Suzie, who’s living in Peckham, London and seems to have a child of her own. Mary Dove is a name taken from a call girl in ‘The Day of the Locust The pendants handed out by The Seamstress are like ‘milagros’ – religious folk charms that are traditionally used for healing purposes. They’re used as ‘votive offerings’ in Mexico and the southern United States. A votive offering is an object deposited in a sacred place for religious purposes. Some reviewers suggest that The Seamstress is the personification of the mythological ‘Fates’, a combination of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos – the spinner, weaver and cutter. She dispenses lucky pendants and amulets to members of the audience, but at the same time she weaves a terrible destiny for Romola. Quotes References Category:Characters